By now, you’ve probably noticed these are coming through a week or two later than usual, as headlines themselves may suggest.

So it happens that all of a sudden, you’re seeing February reviews at the start of March, March ones at the start of April…hey. Life gets in the way, and for someone who’s ostensibly out of the corporate workforce of late, it’s been at least twice as busy – working on the reboot of a certain podcast only being a small part thereof.

But even more than that, there’s been a welcome increase in folks coming to us, offering up their rosters for our delectation and dissection…or if you prefer, to the vagaries of critical review, in our patented honest, straightforward, incisive and idiosyncratic manner.

Like I always tell my wife, love us or hate us, you sure as hell ain’t gonna find nobody else like us. Selah.

Well, one year on and the tide would seem to finally be turning. The wheels of progress move too damn slowly, sometimes, but at least they’re back trying to move after far too many months in utter stasis (if not a horrifying, Lovecraftian regress).

“More down to earth, and in a way more Finnish: straight talk from no-bullshit men.”

One of the more interesting and appreciated items I’ve been asked to review is a recent release from Svart Records’ publishing arm, namely a book focused specifically on the history of Finnish black metal.

Even more than the expected season of renewal that marks the feast of Samhain, there have been some major changes – some good, some bad, some as yet undetermined in whether their pending impact will serve for good or ill…and yet, all of them exceedingly wide in scope and far ranging in prospect.

A few weeks back, I gave a heads up to our Facebook followers that releases were dropping across the virtual desk by the metric tonne, and warned with a twinkle of bemusement that if they kept coming in at the rate they had been, this month’s Roundup was going to be a monster.

And sure enough.

At the time of writing these lines, there are over 110 albums, EPs and a handful of singles under review this month, with the potential if not likelihood that we’ll see a few more arrive before we close out and finalize (hell, there are already a handful of October-range releases on schedule for next month’s post…)